Transcript Translation, Terminology and Responsibility

Translation, Terminology
and Responsibility
Belinda Maia
Universidade do Porto
17-Jul-15
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Objectivos desta Jornada
• Partilhar conhecimentos nos domínios da tradução
especializada, tanto técnica como literária, com uma
forte componente de interdisciplinariedade;
• Promover o reforço do elo entre os estudos de tradução
especializada e o mundo empresarial;
• Fomentar o diálogo entre as empresas e a comunidade
académica acerca das necessidades reais na área da
tradução.
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Objectives of this Jornada
• To exchange knowledge acquired in fields of specialized
translation, both technical and literary, with a strong
emphasis on the need for interdisciplinarity;
• To promote and reinforce the links between specialized
translation studies and the business world;
• To encourage dialogue between the translation market
and the academic community on the real needs of
professional translation.
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Emphasis of this contribution
• To exchange knowledge acquired ……….
with a strong emphasis on the need for
interdisciplinarity;
• To encourage dialogue between the
translation market and the academic
community on the real needs of
professional translation
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This contribution will
• Examine:
– Changes that have taken place in market demands
for translation over the last 40 years
– The way translators have been educated over the last
40 years
– The problems of developing translation curricula
– The way special domain translation and terminology
studies have (not) been taught
– The importance of terminology to the professional
translator
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This contribution will
• Call for greater responsibility from:
– The academic world and the development of
translation curricula
– The translation market as responsible and just
employers
– Translators as professional language services
providers
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Pym’s (2000)
3-segment model of the market
• The bottom end of the market – students,
friends-of-friends, part-timers = no real
professional training > badly-paid
• The middle market professional translator
= usually with qualifications, sometimes inhouse, or free-lance working for a
company > average pay
• The “highly competent language
professionals” – earning more money than
they can find time to spend!
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Translation market – 40 years ago
• Professional translators =
– Translators in the EC, UN, NATO and other
international organizations – very often
bilinguals with qualifications in a specialized
field like economics, science, law etc
– In-house translators for ministries or large
companies – often secretaries with good
knowledge of languages
– Free-lancers – often with some other parttime job – with knowledge of languages
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Translation Market – Now
• Professional translators =
– Translators in the EC, UN, NATO and other
international organizations > but increase in
outsourcing >
– In-house translators – disappearing as work is >>>>
outsourced >
• Language services companies
– Free-lancers – often employed by these
companies + some other part-time job
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Today - Translator >
Language Services Provider
• See Maia et al (2002)
• The Language Services Provider:
– Translates and interprets
– Uses translation software
– Uses information technology
– Revises translations
– Summarises texts
– Edits and adapts both originals and
translations
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Today - Translator >
Language Services Provider
– Does Technical Writing
– Subtitles and dubs multimedia texts
– Works on localization teams
– Creates Translation memories
– Creates Terminology databases within
commercial translation software
– Works with Controlled Writing and Machine
Translation
– Does research in Computational Linguistics
and Language Engineering
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Translation Training –
Past
• Graduate and Post-graduate training at:
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Geneva (1941)
Viena(1943)
Montréal (1951)
Paris – ISIT and ESIT (1957)
Belgium - ESTI, Brussels (1962): ISTI, Brussels
(1965) : Antwerp HIVT (1968)
• Private Institutes and Polytechnics – combining
languages with secretarial skills
• Knowledge of languages + ‘learning on the job’
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Translator Training Today
• A wide variety – see:
• List of Translator-Training Institutions by
Country at: http://isg.urv.es/tti/tti.htm
> A general survey – not always up-to-date
• Translation and Interpreting courses at
Lexicool:
http://www.lexicool.com/courses.asp
> Particularly good on Post-graduate
courses – and up-to-date
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Translator Training Today
• Undergraduate courses - New ones
developed every year
– Not always with the benefit of professional
advice on the relevance of the curricula
– Not always with the benefit of knowledge of
the market
– Often more with a view to solving the needs of
the teaching institution than the needs of the
market
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Why?
• Translation courses are traditionally taught
in the environment of Modern Languages
– or formulated for other institutions by
professors from this environment
• The academic Modern Languages world is
dominated by Literature
• Recently, Literature ‘discovered’
Translation Studies
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What is Translation Studies?
• Munday (2001) - a ‘bird’s eye view’ of:
– Linguistic theories
– Functional and systemic theories
– Cultural studies – e.g. feminism / colonialism
– The (in)visibility of translation
– Philosophical theories
– Translation studies as an interdiscipline
– ETC
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Translation studies and
responsibility
• Debates the translator’s responsibility to:
– The author
– The source text
– The social, cultural and historical context of the
source text
– The reader of the translation
– The social, cultural and historical context of the
reader of the translation
– The linguistic realization and expression of the source
text and context in the translation
– ETC
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For example
• The translator’s responsibility to:
– Shakespeare (1564-1616)
– Romeo and Juliet (1594-5)
– The social, cultural and historical context of
Shakespeare’s plays in general – Elizabethan
England
– The social, cultural and historical context of
the story of Romeo and Juliet – Italy
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For example
• The translator’s responsibility to the social,
cultural and historical context of the
reader of the translation:
– 16th century Portugal?
– 21st century Portugal?
– General or academic readers?
– Verse or prose?
– Work of art… or a crib for students of English
literature?
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But what about Romeu & Juliet as:
•
•
•
•
•
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An opera by Gounod (1867)
Ballet music by Prokofiev (1935)
Film – Zefirelli (1968)
Film – Luhrmann (1996) – in modern dress
West Side Story (1961)
Shakespeare in Love (1998)
?
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• Now multiply all these
possible interpretations by
involving a different
language, country, culture
and time!
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• And how relevant is all this
theory to professional
translation?
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Well….
• Legal texts > products of centuries of
different legal systems
– Is the translation a legal document – or an
explanation of the legal content?
– Think about a university degree certificate
• Technical texts
– Are you justified in improving them using
techniques from Technical Writing?
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And….
• Scientific texts:
– Result from complex, highly sophisticated, and
constantly evolving knowledge systems
– Often become out-dated after a few years
– May belong to different contemporary schools or
trends in science
• They are NOT a combination of ‘difficult’ words
• They are only boring to those who don’t
understand them – i.e. many translators!
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So…
• These facts should be recognized
today by those who teach future
PROFESSIONAL translators
• Let us see how people are
trying....
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Translator Training Today
• Undergraduate courses in Translation
AND:
– Interpreting
– International Relations
– European Studies
– Intercultural Communication
– Translation or Language Technology
– Terminology
– Documentation
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Translation AND
• Specialization in:
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Language services of international organizations
Documentary translation (general and technical)
Précis-writing
Conference/community/public service interpreting,
Politics
Business, economics, law, etc
Editorial work
Literary translation
Multimedia
Etc
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OR…
•
•
•
•
Applied Languages
Language Sciences
Intercultural Communication
……………
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Translator Training Today
• Post-graduate and specialized translation
courses
– Increasing number of courses offered
– Wide variety of specializations
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•
•
•
•
•
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Language services professionals
Translators with information technology skills
Domain-specific Translators e.g. Law, Economics
Translators for Multimedia
Localizers
Language Engineering Research
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Questions?
• Should we TRAIN translators or
EDUCATE them?
• Should Translation, Interpreting and other
Language Services be taught at a
Graduate or Post-Graduate level?
• Should the Graduate level concentrate on
general skills only?
• Should Post-Graduate study concentrate
on specialization?
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Questions?
• Should we talk about:
– ‘Técnicas de Tradução’ / Translation
Techniques?
– ‘Tradução e Seus Mecanismos’ / Translation
and its Mechanisms (NOT machine
translation!)
– Tradução Específica ou Tradução
Especializada / Specific Translation or
Specialized Translation (and what is the
difference?)
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Questions?
• Why does one University teach:
– Teoria e Prática da Tradução Literária
– BUT
– Prática da Tradução do Texto de
Especialidade
• Why do so few university translation
programmes include courses on
Terminology or Document Management?
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Answers?
• There are plenty – but the principal ones:
– A combination of ignorance and intellectual
snobbery within the academic system
– The Result / Cause of market lack of
comprehension of need for Total Quality
Management in documentation
– The Result / Cause of the low value (and pay)
for Translators
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Terminology in Translation courses
- the Past/Present
• Post-graduate courses prefer training
domain specialists + good knowledge of
languages
No terminology training considered necessary
• Terminology learnt ‘on-the-job’ –in-house
translators / specialized free-lancers
Terminology acquisition feature of ‘on-the-job’
experience
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Terminology in Translation courses
- the Past > Present
• (Frequent) Special subjects in teaching
programmes
– Related to general business skills
– Introductions to:
• Economics, law etc –
– BUT very basic
• (Rare) Introductions to:
– Terminology
– Document Management
– Quality Control
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Translator educators
• Believe(d?) that if the student could do
literary translation, anything else came
easily
• Do (did?) NOT consider Scientific and
Technical translation a problem
• A good dictionary and common sense
is/was all one needed
• Access to expert information difficult and/
or expensive
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Market and Terminology
• Resulting ‘terminology’ from translators
is/was often unacceptable to specialists
• Scientific and technical translation given
to:
– domain experts
– in-house translators
– free-lancers who specialize
• ‘Translators’ continue(d) to be considered
‘secretaries with languages’
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Terminology as a discipline
• Sager (1992) – terminology can be
– An activity - “the set of practices and methods
used for the collection, description and
presentation of terms”
– A theory – “the set of premises, arguments
and conclusions required for explaining the
relationships between concepts and terms
which are fundamental for a coherent activity
under 1”
– “A vocabulary of a special subject field”
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Prescriptive Terminology
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Wuster (from 1930s) – engineer
Standardization of terminology
Ideal of 1 concept = 1 term
International Standards Organization (ISO)
Instituto Portuguesa da Qualidade (IPQ)
National interests in terminology – e.g.
France, Canada, Catalonia, Austria
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Terminology Today
• Increasingly Descriptive
• Radical change from paper to digital form
– dictionaries /glossaries > databases
• Essentially multidisciplinary
• Domains with special traditions – e.g.
Chemistry, Pharmaceuticals, Engineering,
Medicine.....
• Linguistics > lexicography > specialized
lexicography > terminology
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How do Translators fit in?
• Terminology is usually – but not always – a
bi- or multi-lingual activity
• Terms often translated by experts –
sometimes by translators and/or linguists
• Translators are USERS of terminology –
but need to be aware of strengths and
limitations of sources
• E.g. EURODICAUTOM is NOT the Word
of God!
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Terminology and Translation
• Technical dictionaries are:
– Limited to certain areas
– Out-of-date very quickly
• Theories, concepts and products evolve and
change
• Terminology changes to reflect this evolution
• On-line glossaries are particularly suspect
unless provided by reputable organizations
• Many organizations and companies have ‘inhouse’ terminology that is not valid elsewhere
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Terminology
Today and Tomorrow
• In a knowledge-driven world good
terminology is essential for
– Translation software
– Information databases
– Information Retrieval
– Knowledge Engineering
– Artificial intelligence
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Translation, Terminology and
Responsibility
• The academic world that educates
translators must learn to be responsible to
the market, and teach responsibility to its
students
• The market must become more
responsible and accept that Total Quality
Management requires training and hard
work – and good pay
• Translators must .... Be responsible!
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Thank you!
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